Fishing Report Week Ending 7/21/19

It was a tough week of king fishing. A lot of hours for not a lot of fish. I think the fish didn’t get the memo that this is the peak time for the run. Sure, we caught a few fish, but the amount of effort given did not produce the results I've become accustom to.

On to the good stuff. How about that mother/son photo? That’s Lance on the left, and Kris on the right. These fish were caught on Thursday. Here's a little backstory. Lance sat for two days in the boat without a bite. On the third day, he decided to go golfing in the morning with his aunt Teresa. He shot an 89 and nearly had a hole in one. He then came out fishing in the afternoon and caught this 40lb king. To quote Lance, "it was a good day."  It got a little bit better when his mother followed up with her second king.

I normally post photos chronologically, but the mother/son photo was too good not to have it on top. The fish above Kris caught on Super Tuesday. I was really hoping that would foreshadow the week ahead, but.....

How's this for luck? John Zemke ended up with the Charlie Brown Award.  "I caught a salmon! I caught a trout! I caught a rock...." Yup, that's right. John was able to hook and land this rock. It was his only bite for the week. Good grief.

The other big catch for the week was towing a disabled boat back to the dock. I figured being a Good Samaritan would produce good fishing karma for the rest of the day. Nope. Not a single bite afterwards.

Here’s the rest of the Zemke/Rosenquist clan. In the front are John and Teresa. In the back are Libby and Dennis. We joked about participation awards after four days of limited action. All I can say is you guys get it, and I can’t thank you enough for your attitude and patience (the camaraderie was great too!). 

I finished the week by fishing Jason, Katie, Dylan, and Tyler. That's Jason with the one and only fish and bite for the day.  You guys should also be commended for your patience. Fishing was tough.

It’s not all gloom and doom because the sun will come out tomorrow. Even though I can not guide for kings on a Sunday, I plan to hit the banks with an old friend to fish for red salmon. From what I’m observing from the boat, the red fishing has been steady. The run is coming in much stronger than last year and that’s a good thing.

See you next week for another up to date Kenai fishing report.




Beaver Creek Cabins & Guide Service

What A Guide Can and Can Not Do For You.

Last week I addressed the question about our overall operation. This week I'm going to address what a fishing guide does. This blogpost should be filed under the category of "Managing Expectations."

In general, a fishing guide can:

• Help you catch more fish. Guides are on the water everyday so you are more likely to catch fish with one than with out one. A guide keeps up with what the fish are doing and most likely can put you on the right spot at the right time
• Help you learn the water. If you are new to a river/lake/ocean and have your own boat/gear, a guide can help you understand where to run your boat and where to fish.
• Teach you how to catch fish. This includes different techniques or refining an existing one.
• Introduce you to new equipment, baits, and lures. Guides are on the cutting edge of the industry and often you will get a chance to try something new before buying your own.
• Be quick on a story or a joke when the the fishing is slow. Most "good" guides are part entertainer, educator, historian, psychologist, and hopefully a friend by the end of the trip. To quote my mentor, Jeff King, "guiding is what happens when you don't catch fish..."

A fishing guide can not:

• Walk on water. No matter how adept a guide is they have no bearing on when or where fish will appear. Nature alone handles this little detail.
• Control the weather. Some days it's going to be too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry or too windy. My grandmother always told me there's no such thing as bad weather. It's bad clothing. Plan accordingly (I don't cancel trips because of the weather).

This is what you can expect when you hire me as your fishing guide.

• Coast Guard licensed, CPR, First Aid, insured, certified and permitted to fish the Kenai River.
• Never late, always on time.
• Intimate knowledge of all fishing regulations.
• Top notch fishing gear (including rain gear) and bait provided.
• Clean your fish at the end of the day.
• I will not be fishing alongside of you. My whole day is about helping you catch fish and not you watching me catch fish. 
• Guarantee the opportunity to catch fish, not the fish themselves. If you're looking for a sure thing, you can buy fish at the Fred Meyer grocery store.
• You won't hear about my personal problems. Who'd want to pay for that?
• Respect to everyone in my boat, and respect to the boats fishing around us. 
• I'll never know it all. I'm constantly learning.
• An occasional Ole and Sven joke, or maybe not.
• No guarantee that I won't repeat a story (raise your hand if you heard this one before). 
• Hey, it's your vacation, and this should be happy stuff. I'm going to keep things positive throughout the whole trip. Jane says that I'm not a "half full" kinda guy. She says I'm a "always full" kinda guy.

If you're still on the fence about whether or not you should hire a guide, here is one last thing to consider. It's relatively inexpensive compared to owning a boat, motor, trailer, buying gas, bait, and all the right fishing gear. Why not sit back, fish, relax, and let me worry about all that other stuff.

Next week, my topic will be about the things you can expect when you rent one of our cabins. Come back then to hear what Jane told me to say....ha!

Beaver Creek Cabins & Guide Service

Boat 149

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game requires Kenai River guides to display on the side of their boat a rather large green and yellow, watermelon shaped ADFG sticker, and a three digit number assigned to the guide. The purpose of the green and yellow sticker is to identify that the boat is being used for commercial activities. The three digit number is to make it easy to report a particular guide if illegal activities are being done (at least that's the best explanation I know of). My number is 149.

Licensing of guides on the Kenai River began in 1982. 207 guide boats were registered the first year. Since then, the numbers have been up and down with a peak of 396 guides registered in 2006 and 2007.  In 2016, the total was 267. Give or take a few percentage points, approximately 75% of the guides are Alaska residents, 25% are not. Other interesting statistics of the guide fleet include 29% of current guides have been registered for 15 or more years, while 17% of guides were new in 2016.

I'm not sure what the stats are for illegal guides on the Kenai River, I have my suspicions, so I'll save that topic for another day...

Beaver Creek Cabins & Guide Service

Will Jahrig

Big Willie. A Renaissance man. Larger than life. A man's man. Problem solver. It all applies to the guy sitting in the boat above and I can't say enough about him.

Will Jahrig may seem familiar to you. If you spent any amount of time at the cabins you've probably run into Will Jahrig and his wife Becky. They keep their boat on the dock and are out here fishing the river all summer long. Anyway, Jane and I were lucky enough to buy Beaver Creek Cabins from the Jahrig's nine years ago. From the dock to the cabins Will and Becky built this place from the ground up. They did a great job and we're both trying hard to continue their tradition.

So, the real purpose of this tribute is to show one of Will's many talents. He builds boats, paints them, and rigs them out. Last fall I was sitting in my boat on the dock and Will thought it was about time for my boat to be scrubbed up. It was definitely looking rough and it wasn't hard to persuade me to have it cleaned up for the 2011 season.

Here's a "before" shot of my boat stripped out and ready to be painted. Pretty ugly I must say.

Here's an "after" shot of the boat after Will got done with it.

And another shot of it from the side.

Every year I think about buying a new boat but it seems pointless when Will can make a Willie boat look brand new. I know cleaning it up once in awhile sure makes Jane and Peter (CPA and life advisor) happy. I know I am.

Thanks a lot big Will for fitting my boat in on your "off" time.